Data Security

Just as this joke has no well-designed conclusion, the controversy around EMV conversion protocol seems like it will never end. And as fortune would have it, the three subjects in the title are at the heart of the most recent debate. Senator Dick Durbin, somewhat of a merchant ambassador on Capitol Hill, is once again…

Since the hacks of Target and Home Depot that affected millions of consumers, retailers worldwide are concerned with their cybersecurity procedures and solutions now more than ever. In fact, attacks on POS systems remain the top source of confirmed data breaches according to Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report. In addition, the increased use of in-store mobile technology, such as beacons, brings added risk to retailers by providing another potential entry point that hackers can manipulate.

When milliseconds are the difference between success and failure, retailers cannot afford to ignore their digital performance. Retail is at the forefront of a massively disruptive digital transformation. We have entered the era of “retail everywhere” with hyper-connected, 24/7, omnichannel digital consumers who have high expectations for their online experiences. They want retailers to know them, serve them, delight them and not waste their time.

If you accept credit and debit cards, your business is responsible for ensuring that its data security efforts reflect current best practices. This is necessary for your own risk management as well as for the protection of your customers. Here are three methods to improve your data security: 1. Confirm your payment processors are secure.…

Wal-Mart is suing Visa for allowing customers to verify chip-enabled debit card transactions with a signature instead of a PIN. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in New York Supreme Court says that Visa requires Wal-Mart to accept signature-based transactions for chip debit cards, which Wal-Mart says are a less secure method of payment than PIN-based payments and…

Many merchants and retail workers are watching their lives play in slow motion when they process credit cards. To combat fraudulent transactions, the retail industry is shifting away from the traditional magnetic stripe toward tiny computer chips embedded inside cards. The chip technology, known as E.M.V. (for Europay, MasterCard and Visa), has been around for…

Security breaches in the retail sector are becoming more common due to the large payoff to criminals in seizing credit card information. While hardly a month goes by without a media report announcing a retail breach, their average size has changed over the past few years. While 2014 was named the Year of the Retailer…

If you're tired of how much longer checkout at a store is taking since the rollout of new chip-enabled credit and debit cards, relief may be on the way. Visa said on Tuesday it had upgraded its software to improve the processing of chip-enabled cards and reduce checkout times. The payments company said the upgrade will…

The payments industry is evolving rapidly, between the switch to Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) in the United States this past year along with the successes and failures associated with mobile payments. With new innovations and technologies also comes a shift in consumer behavior and expectations.

Marketers are aspirational people and "DMP" is the latest buzzword threatening single customer view’s long-standing reputation as the Holy Grail of marketing. Essentially, a data management platform (DMP) is a tool that stores data from multiple sources, helping marketers identify previously anonymous customer segments so they can target them via the appropriate channel with appropriate…